All Things Bright and Beautiful

Lyrics

All things bright and beautiful,
all creatures great and small,
all things wise and wonderful
the Lord God made them all.

Each little flower that opens,
each little bird that sings,
he made their glowing colours,
he made their tiny wings:

All things bright and beautiful,
all creatures great and small,
all things wise and wonderful
the Lord God made them all.

The purple headed mountain,
the river running by,
the sunset and the morning
that brightens up the sky:

All things bright and beautiful,
all creatures great and small,
all things wise and wonderful
the Lord God made them all.

The cold wind in the winter,
the pleasant summer sun,
the ripe fruits in the garden,
he made them every one:

All things bright and beautiful,
all creatures great and small,
all things wise and wonderful
the Lord God made them all.

He gave us eyes to see them,
and lips that we might tell
how great is God almighty,
who has made all things well:

All things bright and beautiful,
all creatures great and small,
all things wise and wonderful
the Lord God made them all.

History

All Things Bright and Beautiful was written by Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-1895) and first published in 1848 in her collection Hymns for Little Children, where it appeared in seven stanzas. The collection was designed to teach children the faith through the articles of the Apostles' Creed, and this hymn elaborates the clause describing God as 'Maker of heaven and earth': its verses unfold that single phrase into a child's-eye survey of the created world.

The hymn's shape has changed since 1848. The original first stanza was converted into the refrain now sung between verses, and two stanzas of the 1848 original are often omitted from modern hymnals; the third verse in particular, with its reference to social rank, has been dropped from many later hymnals as social attitudes changed.

The hymn became one of the most successful and popular hymns for children in the English language. Hymnary.org records it in 370 hymnals, and although it was born in an Anglican teaching context it is now sung across many Christian denominations.

Performance

The hymn is commonly sung to two tunes. ROYAL OAK is the tune usually associated with the text in modern hymnals: a seventeenth-century English folk melody, originally found in The Dancing Master (1686) and associated with 'The Twenty-Ninth of May', a loyalist song celebrating the restoration of Charles II; the tune's name recalls the oak in which the King hid after the Battle of Worcester. Martin Shaw (1875-1958) arranged it as a hymn setting, published in his children's collection Song Time (1915).

The alternative, named ALL THINGS BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL after the text, was composed in 1887 by William Henry Monk (1823-1889), music editor of Hymns Ancient and Modern.

Both tunes carry the 7.6.7.6-with-refrain metre. The hymn remains a staple for children's and all-age worship, with a refrain simple enough for very young children to learn.

Sources: hymnary.org · en.wikipedia.org